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Topic: Voter Kindness (Read 2418 times)

In the Washington Post's Letters to the Editor, a man wrote that an elderly couple were concerned about the wife's ability to stand in the long voting lines. A young lady who was towards the front of the line and had already waited about 45 minutes, gave them her spot and walked to the back of line. That is so wonderful!

Wow. That's awesome. Especially when you consider that someone on a local forum here was complaining that his local precinct was letting the handicap go ahead. His thought was that they were in wheelchairs and some had assistants so they could sit while they waited and no one should get to line jump when voting because no one's right to vote was more important than anothers. I agree that everyone's vote is just as important as the next persons, but really? How much longer could it take to let those with disabilities go ahead? At least they were coming out to vote.

I encountered this on election day as well, where an elderly couple had come out to vote but had parked in the regular lot. The man helped his (I assume) wife into her wheelchair but then seemed to be unable to get her moving up the hill toward the door. I heard him tell her that he'd have to go find someone to help, and so I went over to offer to push her up to the door. Two other people, one of whom was wrangling three little kids, all approached her as I did with offers to help as well, and we all helped them get to the tables. They were both very appreciative and it made my day a lot happier to see so many folks wiling to lend a hand.

What a really neat thing to hear. And they didn't even ask if she was going to vote for someone other than "their" choice!

But I must confess that when I hear about these long wait lines it kind of puzzles me. I live in a county where pretty much every eligible adult does vote. Yet I've never had to wait in line. Not even for a minute.

They always have at least eight voting booths and a slew of judges. You just walk right up to the table, give your name, they hand you a slip of paper with your name preprinted on it, you hand it to someone else and that person hands you a ballot! You go to an empty booth, vote and then put your ballot into a machine that sort of sucks it right in.

No wait at all. The whole process takes about two minutes longer than the time you spend actually marking your ballot and you're out the door. The hardest part is finding parking!

It's interesting that in some places the procedure takes such a long time. It seems like the long wait might be too much for a lot of people and might discourage voters from coming in at all. Isn't there a way they can streamline things a bit? Maybe add more booths? Encourage more 'early voting'?

And thank you too, Virg, for being so willing to assist! All Americans should be like you. Sadly not everyone is!